Startups Stack Exchange Archive

How to tell clients that the software is free as long as it is in beta

we’ve developed a SAAS product and now we are building a landing page and we do not want to charge users for it quite yet.

We want them to use it for free while we are still ironing out some bugs / adding functionality.

We expect software to be in beta at least for the next 3-6 months.

Right now we have a pricing page where we say that it is a 30-day free no credit card required trial.

Our options are:

  1. Remove pricing page and add Sign up for free (And then notify existing clients that it is no longer free)
  2. Change 30-day trial to 180-day trial

I don’t like any of these ideas. Can you help me with some suggestions as to what should I do in this case?

Answer 11430

The most common answer is to have people apply to use the beta for free. That’s not a free trial, but it does make a statement about charging in future, and even if you automatically approve all applications, you have preserved a clear distinction between beta customers and everyone else, and you can treat those two groups differently as you get ready to charge.

But you need to understand that your decision isn’t necessarily the right one. There are some high profile, successful people who would challenge you not only to preserve your pricing page, but to make people give you their card details even if they’re signing up for a free trial. If your resources are limited, why waste them on people who haven’t shown you that they would definitely give you money for the value you promise? If you’re bootstrapping, that logic is pretty hard to fault.

Finally, is it possible that the question behind your question is, “How much can we charge?” If that’s what’s going on, taking pricing off the website pushes back that learning, and makes it very hard to signal to people whether what you’re making is for them.


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